From John Boehner’s site. Worth the read, at least rhetorically, the Republicans are finally acting like Republicans.
Washington, Jun 13 - This week in the House, Republicans continued to dominate the debate on the House floor by giving speech after speech on the need to bring down soaring gas prices – which reached $4.07 today, according to AAA. Even as gas prices continue to surge, Democrats in Congress still refuse to work with Republicans to increase production of American energy and lower fuel costs. House Republicans have introduced a comprehensive energy plan that calls for exploring for oil and gas in an environmentally-responsible manner, improving energy efficiency, and encouraging investment in groundbreaking research in advanced alternative and renewable energy technologies. And even though Democrats refused to schedule a vote on the House GOP proposals, Republicans took every opportunity to speak about their energy solutions this week. Full video and excerpts of all 28 “one-minute” speeches given by House Republicans follow:
MONDAY JUNE 9, 2008
Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) – “Mr. Speaker, as another week passes and gas prices continue to hit all-time record highs each day, our constituents want answers from Congress. Because there is no one single fix to stabilize the energy prices, we must have a comprehensive, realistic plan.”
TUESDAY JUNE 10, 2008
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) – People are suffering, and, instead, we are here on the floor dealing with congressional minutia. We must be dealing with legislation to improve conservation, improve production and improve innovations of how we deliver those fuel sources to the people. Otherwise we will become, as John Adams said, one useless man is disgraced, two are a law firm, and three or more become a Congress.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) – “Madam Speaker, you know that the price at the pump is what everyone is talking about. And in my district in Tennessee, moms are now spending over $100 more to fill up the tanks than they were when the Democrats took the gavel in both the House and the Senate. It costs over $100 a month more to fill up the tank of an average minivan. We have seen the price of a gallon of gas go from $2.26 to $4 a gallon.”
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) – “Madam Speaker, today America is drilling for ice on Mars, yet we cannot drill for oil in America. We have billions of gallons of crude oil in America that we can’t even tap into because of a failed policy by the Majority. We can’t drill for oil. Just yesterday, I filled up my car and paid $3.99. a gallon.”
Rep. David Davis (R-TN) – “It is time for solutions, time for no more excuses. High gas prices are not only an economic security issue, they are a national security issue. We are too dependent on foreign countries, countries that hate us and hate our freedoms and, quite frankly, hate our religion.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) – “Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak about the drill-nothing Congress. I wish I had thought of that phrase, but it’s the headline in Investor’s Business Daily, Monday, June 9. The average price for regular gas at $4 a gallon over the weekend. Gas prices have risen 75 percent since Nancy Pelosi took over. Where is the energy independence Democrats promised 2 years ago? That’s the subheadline.”
Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) – “Tomorrow, I will offer an amendment to the Interior appropriations bill that will lift the congressional moratorium on offshore production from 50 to 200 miles, which happens to be the safest and most environmentally friendly place to produce energy. There is no need to beg the Saudis for more oil and Canada for more natural gas.”
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) – “According to the Department of Interior, 86 billion barrels of oil are available in the Outer Continental Shelf, added to the 53 billion barrels available in land. According to the Bureau of Land Management, we have 139 billion barrels of oil right here at home. That’s more than the oil-rich countries like Kuwait, Venezuela and Russia have. Last year we imported over 6 billion gallons of refined gasoline into the United States.”
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) – “America needs to take care of America. We need to remove the silly restrictions that prohibit drilling. We need to drill in the Badlands of the Dakotas; remove the offshore drilling ban; drill in Alaska; and we can cure this pump panic disease.”
Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) – “Today, the Majority will spend hours considering no less than 10 nonbinding resolutions. Yet this Democrat Congress will do nothing, nothing, about outrageous energy prices. We fill the day with recognitions and commemorations, but there is no urgency for struggling Americans.”
Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) – “The New York Times, which is not one of our best supporters, says the counties were motorists spend the highest percentage of their income on gasoline tend to be poor, rural areas, which is what I represent. That is why I am on the floor monthly now talking about gas reaching $4 a gallon, refinery expansion delayed because of environmental attacks, the clean gas, $4 increase in price of natural gas bills.”
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) – “If the government would sell companies leases that have oil in them instead of selling them places that turn out to be dry holes, then we would have more oil produced in this country. We imported over 600 million gallons of gasoline last year. We need to add to our refinery capabilities, also.”
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2008
Rep. Gresham Barrett (R-SC) – “Two years ago the Democrats said they would introduce a commonsense plan to help the energy crisis. And today, when the Americans need it most, when they’re paying $4 a gallon for gas, there is no energy plan. Yet I stand here today week after week, as I am doing, asking my friends on the Democrat side, ‘Where is the plan?’ I have only seen plan 1, and that has been drafted by the Republican Party.”
Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) – “As families struggle with soaring gas prices, our Nation’s energy solutions, I think, lie on Webster’s words. House Republicans have offered a plan to lower gas prices by developing the resources of our land in an environmentally safe way. This is an approach that is supported by some 60 percent of the American people in a recent Gallup poll. But the Majority won’t listen.”
Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) – “They also know that a magic bullet will not lower the price at the pump for families, but increasing American energy production in a responsible way will help, and it will create American jobs. The American people want to increase energy production in a responsible, environmentally friendly way.”
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) – “[B]ack in my district they are having to defend themselves from opportunistic, gas-grabbing criminals. Thieves are actually posting Internet videos discussing how to steal gas from cars. The kind of information that used to be shared in the prison yard has made its way into the ‘broadcast yourself’ genre of Web sites. It is shocking, but it is not really surprising, because we have ignored the issue of providing a supply of energy in this country.”
Rep. Mary Fallin (R-OK) – “The question we have to ask ourselves is what kind of future will our children and our grandchildren have if this Congress takes no action to produce more U.S. energy. The lack of production of sufficient U.S. energy is dangerous for our national economy and dangerous for our U.S. national security.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) – “Despite the commonsense logic of increasing production of American-produced energy and the strong support of the American people for tapping into those resources, 86 percent of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.”
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) – “You know, if you started drilling in ANWR, and remember, President Clinton vetoed that 10 years ago. That would have reduced your gas prices now probably 10 to 15 cents; nobody actually knows. But what would ANWR be. Put it this way, if ANWR was a basketball court, because it is the size of South Carolina, but just to give a word picture, if it were the size of a basketball court, the drilling area would be a business card. Fanatical extremists have locked that up.”
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) – “To lower gas prices, we have to use American energy resources. Right now, the U.S. produces 41 percent of the petroleum we use. We can do much better than that. Just by opening up a small portion of Alaska for oil production, we can recover 15 years of Saudi Arabian crude oil. By streamlining rules for energy exploration off the Outer Continental Shelf, we can access roughly 115 billion barrels of oil, enough oil to power 60 million cars for 60 years.”
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) – “Mr. Speaker, it is time for the Democratic Majority, who promised the American people a plan, to bring that plan to this House floor, instead of important legislation like we voted on yesterday, supporting the goals and ideals of the International Year of Sanitation. I know the American people are going to be very comforted that this body took up that legislation, and not energy legislation that would have brought relief for high energy costs.”
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) – “The American people are fed up with a Congress that can’t seem to respond to one of their most basic concerns. People are tired of Democrat leaders blocking action to bring down skyrocketing gas prices. So we have introduced a discharge petition to force a vote on the No More Excuses Energy Act. We need to increase domestic production of energy in order to bring down the price of gas at the pump.”
Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) – “The real job creation engine would be American-made energy with a couple of provisions. Since 1994 on votes on the floor of this House, on ANWR exploration, Republicans have supported 91 percent of the time, House Democrats have opposed ANWR exploration 86 percent of the time.”
Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) – “The reality is if we bring all of our resources together, yes, conservation, yes, alternative fuels, and open up the resources that we have right here in America offshore where there is a moratorium that Congress can lift, a moratorium that was imposed by Congress on shale oil that can be lifted by Congress, and in Alaska where Congress can lift that moratorium, if we combine all of those resources, we can be free of OPEC. It is time for a real energy policy where we free our resources for American-made energy.”
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) – “The American people should know that there is a plan in Washington for energy independence. Republicans have a comprehensive strategy of exploration, innovation and conservation that will set America on a positive track. We have the tools and capacity to put our plan into motion. All we need are Democrats to step forward, join us, and tell the American people that Washington is no longer going to stand in the way of energy exploration in this country, that the short-term and long-term strategic and economic value of investing in America is our first priority.”
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2008
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) – “Two years ago, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle told the American people they had a commonsense plan to bring down gas prices. Unfortunately, we still haven’t seen this commonsense plan, so I would like to offer my own. This is a drill bit. The drill bit goes into the ground. Oil comes out of the ground. Oil goes to a refinery. Gasoline comes out of the refinery. More gas, price comes down.”
Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) – “Americans say, what about America? What about American energy? Why not explore for the trillions of barrels of America’s oil off our coast, America’s shale oil? Saying ‘no’ to Americans is not an energy policy. Begging other nations is not an energy policy. Americans get it. Congress needs to get it too. American oil, American jobs, American control of its own destiny and returning America to be the greatest Nation on Earth and not a nation that has its hat in its hand saying please help us.”
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) – “The anti-crude oil crowd has an ethical dilemma. You see, they don’t want to drill for crude in Alaska, they don’t want to drill offshore, especially off that sacred west coast. They don’t want any refineries to produce that crude into products. They are just against all this nonsense. After all, they say, crude is the demon of the Earth. However, they don’t have a problem with using everything that comes from crude, like gasoline that comes from crude off the Texas east coast, refined in American refineries.”
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2 Comments to “What the Republicans are Saying in the House Regarding Gas Prices”
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Marsha Blackburn, why didn’t you fix the problem yet? You have been there 5.5 years and your buddies have controlled the congress and the President…
Marsha Blackburn is my Congressman.
She is no conserevative.
See her unconstitutional votes at my old blog:
mickeywhite.blogspot.com
See current info at:
bluecollarrepublican.com
Mickey
Rossville TN
You will note, I said rhetorically : )
Part of the reason Republicans lost the Congress is that they failed to implement the conservative agenda, including opening access to our natural resources….